Newbie Seeks Most Bizarre Past Jobs and Pastimes

Levitea,

This is one of the best threads, ever. Thank you.

While I was an undergrad, I worked in the kitchen at a very large, privately owned hospital on First Hill in Seattle.

I helped serve meals and cleaned up after as part of a large crew of college students from all over the world. We worked evenings, weekends and holidays and were all students at the U of W, Seattle U and SPU. There were a few ESL students prepping at Edison Tech (now Seattle Central Community College) for one of the local universities.

The best part was the comraderie and international friendships (two of which, for my wife and I, continue on, 40 years later). We had a lot of fun on the job and at the outrageous parties we had at every opportunity, all over Seattle. We also had very understanding bosses (Ms. Ziegler and Mrs. Gannon).

The bad part was the sht (literally and figuratively) that came down the clean-up line after the meals. Crp, eyeballs, other prosthetics and other imaginative creations would shut down the line until nursing staff from the offending unit came down and cleaned up. I (don't) apologize to anyone grossed out by this description.

I met my wife of 41 years in this strange, and sometimes gross, environment; I couldn't possibly complain. In retrospect, this was one of the best times in my life. Everything in my life flows from there.

I must have offended the gods as my * replacements for letters in the rude words I was trying to use didn't register as typed. Sorry!!

Hmm. Web site builder for a porn star. Pawn shop manager. Wax chaser in a foundry (anyone else know what that is?). Quarter counter at a video game arcade. Civil deputy at the sheriff/police/fish&game/tribal police office. Oh yeah, art model (wink wink yes indeed).

Well lets see....

My mother, father, and grandmother all worked for the NSA (National Security Agency). My dad was a computer encryption expert.

In 1st and 2nd Grade, I was a computer network technician for my elementary school (I think my dad just liked the fact that his kid could fix his instructors computers)

I was the youngest certified gun instructor the National Rifle Association has ever had. I took the course and was handed my certificate for graduation the day I turned 21. To my knowledge no one else has ever been certified the day they turn 21.

I have been a fairly avid writer of all sorts, starting for when I wrote articles for gaming magazines at the age of 16 and later evolving into poetry and blogging.

I'll contribute one of the weirdest jobs I've ever heard of. One of my dear friends used to work for the Eye Bank organ donation organization. And she was the person who would remove corneas from corpses. (Shiver!)

I put myself through college working as a an incoming reservation sales agent for Quality Inns, Comfort Inns...this is not telemarketing, people dialed an 800 number to get to me...

Which is why questions like, "Will the water shortage in Atlanta affect the swimming pool?"

"My kid puked on the carpet. Send housekeeping."

Were so baffling...

One of my favorite conversations, still fresh after 20 years:

"My daughter is getting married. No, I want a double bed, not a queen, no I don't care if it's the same price, I want the smallest damn bed you can find." In the ugliest room, to boot. (I upgraded for free once the call ended)

Landscaping the side of a cliff.

Hi Levitea,

Sorry I don't have an acceptible picture to post yet.

I've worked as a colorist for Marvel comics, a faux finisher painting marble and alabaster veins on lighting fixtures, a Montessori teacher, a model for art classes, started a short lived cat sitting service, worked as a gemologist in diamond grading labs. Now, I'm in the middle of a new start up - I make flax crackers, certified organic, raw and vegan. I'll post my website when it's finished. The weirdest job I had was my cat sitting service - actually more sad than weird - people project their personal neurosis on their pets. I didn't keep this business for very long, it was hard emotionally. Great topic! Evelyn

I wanna play!

Industrial fishing, taxiing strippers home in the wee hours (professionally), parakeet-sitting, recycling laborer, Hungarian master's thesis polisher, tour guide in Yellowstone, and facilitator of anger management courses (yes, those were the best of all!). A friend once hired me to break concrete chunks off of rebar with a sledgehammer 10 hours a day for three weeks. I worked so hard I was breaking stuff in my sleep.

What a great topic!! I don't think I can top naughty texting...BUT....

I did spend a very long month working as a Giant Dancing Taco.

This was during my senior year in high school and I was working at a local Taco Bell across the street from the Puyallup Fair. During the Fair, they were trying to attract business away from the Fair Burger stand, so they forced me into the dancing taco suit and out onto the corner I went. Thankfully, the suit rendered me mostly unrecognizable, I don't think I would have ever lived that down at school. It wasn't long after that I left the glories of the Fast Food world and moved on to better things...like retail.

There's another job that's under-appreciated. Anyone who works at Target during the Christmas season deserves a HUGE present from Santa. Just my humble opinion....I think every other job I've had has been fairly mundane. I recently left a job decorating cakes at QFC, which sounds a lot more fun than it is. It started to crush my creative spirit, so I left. :O)

My first job ever I was a BUSser at a restaurant that later got BUSted in the big Napa drug bust.

Several retail jobs, including Kay Bee Toys during the Xmas season aka Shop of Insanity.

Barista - it's ESpresso people, not EXpresso! :P

Admin Asst for Academy for Guided Imagery, a landscape firm, a health club, the UW in various departments, including Speech and Hearing where people transitioning genders would come for speech therapy.

Home and office organizer - I once found someone's pot stash as I was exploring drawer space usage! haha. Then there was the home of nastiness with dog hair, old take out containers, and clutter mayhem all over. Eew!

Oh - in college, I was a personal ironer - cheaper than drycleaning and pressing for people. I also cleaned the art rooms during the summer and painted the still life objects as well while listening to positive talk radio.

Forgot how many different things I've done. There's a few juicy tidbits in there I think!

Let's see - I've been a bartender in a punk bar, a rabbit shelter supervisor, a vintage clothing store manager, a zookeeper, and a fashion designer, with some overlapping....but I feel like I'm forgetting something weird....

Daryl, you sound like fun! (Not that the rest of you don't). Which punk bar? Two of my quirkiest and funnest — yes, I know that's poor English usage but it works well anyway — gigs were:

• Delivering everything from movies and munchies to beer and condoms to almost any personality type imaginable as a bike delivery grrl for Kozmo. Between hanging out with a bunch of boys on bikes and listening to drum 'n bass in the warehouse.
• Hoisting downhill mountain bikes and alpine slides onto chairlifts all day as a summer liftie at Ski Bowl in Oregon. Between explaining to people how to step in front of a slowly-moving chair and sit down.
• Then there's my current gig zipping around the Pacific Northwest and other worldwide locations, keeping odd hours, meeting "extreme" people and capturing it all with my camera.

Thank you!

The bar and the zoo were both in another city (and another life!), far, far away....the zoo was a much tamer place than the bar, too.

Your photos are amazing!